Socialism and Liberalism: Opposites?

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In the United States, liberals occupy the ideological center left (progressives are generally thought to be a bit further left from them). Liberals ideally promote equal civil rights for all, equal opportunity, and secular government. Socialism, on the other hand, glorifies the urban working class, thinks in terms of the community unit instead of the individual unit, and in many of its forms is extremely anti-democratic (e.g., the former USSR and the People's Republic of China). Amazingly enough, in many European countries the political left is only represented by various socialist parties.

Are socialism and liberalism indeed opposites? Would this mean liberalism is a right-of-center ideology?

There are differences between Socialism and Communism. Liberals tend to be more socialist leaning in the U.S. (although not necessarily communist). A liberal in the U.S. would be seen more right as a liberal in Europe, but by no means does that mean modern liberalism is center-right. If you had to rank order from left to right the main ideologies, it would be: Communism, socialism, fascism, (socialism lite, the welfare state could go here maybe), modern liberalism, conservatism, and classical liberalism (libertarianism); of course it is a spectrum and there are varying degrees of each group. I didn't include anarchism because many people tend to have different views on how an anarchist society would look like, so it doesn't fit in nicely.

I wasn't aware that liberals and progressives were both generally used terms. I thought we used liberal to mean any left-winger and that progressive was more of a throw-back to the old progressive movement. I mean, why else would we have terms such as "very liberal" or be so concerned with the "most liberal" individual if it was just a small ideological segment rather than a broader division.

Frankly, I would consider American liberalism to not be the opposite of socialism. They are both left-wing ideologies in the US. Perhaps the average American liberal would be to the right of the European spectrum, but that is only because the US leans right enough so that our center is different. The core values of American liberals and socialists are not mutually incomprehensible though as both seek equality and usually liberty too.

Far left doesn't seek equality, they just seek to flip the script over on the majority, which is equally as bad and equally as ignorant. I find it ironic this is called "being progressive". Just shows how stupid our society really is.